Pages

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Clementine

I’ve been meaning to try Clementine for a while, but the problem, and it’s a very small one, is that it’s close to my office, and not downtown. And I didn’t think that they were open for lunch. With Connor-pup, I have to go home after work, and can’t stay uptown for dinner.Anyway… the Blonde and the Redhead took me to dinner there for my birthday last night and we had an amazing and fun dinner. I was thrilled to see that they had escargot on the menu, as you rarely see them. I ordered them as my starter. They were sauteed with shitake mushrooms in a garlic cream sauce over toast points, and were fabulous!The B&R split an order of macaroni and cheese, which is similar to the mac & cheese at Sobo Cafe, where the chef at Clementine used to cook. This is made with the traditional elbow macaroni, instead of Sobo’s penne pasta, but it was every bit as good. For my main, I had the smoked pork tenderloin with smoked gouda mashed potatoes and asparagus. The Blonde had the Baltimore Grill, a lovely piece of steak, with shredded horserashish and the same mash and mixed vegetables. The Redhead had a pork chop with mash and asparagus. Two friends of ours stopped by for drinks at Clementine and sent over a piece of coconut cake with seven-minute icing, which was perfect to end the meal!

Clementine specializes in charcuterie and makes their own sausages and smokes the meat on premise. They’ve just expanded from the original space into the space next door, more than doubling the size of the restaurant.

It was a great place for a celebration dinner in a casual setting and I am sure it will become a new favourite for all of us!

Thanks again, B&R for the lovely presents, the wonderful dinner and the exceptional friendship!!!

I've never tried snails in garlic and cream. See in Nigeria, we cook them in a spicy, peppery tomato sauce - heavenly. You have to try it sometime, and when I've done the L'escargot thingie, I'll let you know!

Welcome to Pigtown Pigout

Pigtown Pigout is a Baltimore-based food blog which takes a look at local restaurants, farmers' markets, all sorts of food -from the simple to the exotic - and other things that interest me and catch my eye.

Please feel free to comment on anything you read and if you have suggestions on topics you'd like to read more about, please e-mail me.

Followers

Good Food Blog Reads

Press Clippings

Style Magazine says: Note to Baltimore restaurateurs: Tell your waitstaff to turn on the charm when Fairfax reserves a table. On pigtown-pigout.blogspot.com, the Pigtown resident and former caterer can be relentlesss. Merciful? No. Entertaining? You bet.

“I have fairly high standards and lived with a chef for a couple of years, so I know how a restaurant should be run,” says Fairfax, Director of Development at the Woodbourne Center. “I can be critical if small things are wrong, because I think that if you don’t pay attention to the small things, then you’re lax on the large ones.

For example, we recently paid nearly $350 for dinner for four then it took 35 minutes to get our car back from the valet service at the restaurant.”

House special: this Baltimore native has the inside scoop on locally owned places off the beaten path.

In an article in the Baltimore Sun, Rob Kasper said Pigtown, who also liked the raw rhubarb, said in her Pigtown Pigout blog that the berry gave everything "a warm round flavor."